Watercooling Help?

bennyboy2606

bennyboy2606

bennyboy2606

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I know a little about watercooling, only from reading up on OCUK. But i don't know what to buy etc.

Following criteria
  • Budget of around £120-£180
  • Need to cool CPU,GPU,Northbridge and RAM

So if anyone has some spare time and wouldn't mind specing up a basket for me that would be great.

Kind regards & Thanks in advance

Ben
 
bennyboy2606 said:
I know a little about watercooling, only from reading up on OCUK. But i don't know what to buy etc.

Following criteria
  • Budget of around £120-£180
  • Need to cool CPU,GPU,Northbridge and RAM

So if anyone has some spare time and wouldn't mind specing up a basket for me that would be great.

Kind regards & Thanks in advance

Ben
Click to expand...

Haha, this sounds like a post that I wrote about a month ago. People are v. unlikely to spec you a H2O system here without you first asking these questions on this forum -

"How about this CPU block", "this radiator", "this zalman GPU block"...

just a word of warning, that's all!
 
Swiftech Ultra Apex kit but that won't do your ram.

Overbudget as well :(

Tbh for your budget of £120 - £180 you won't get anything but the basic kit for cooling everything you want which won't be any better than high end air cooling.
 
Don't bother watercooling your RAM or chipset.

I'm going to make the assumption that you aren't a serious overclocker based on the amount you're planning on spending, so it just isn't worth the extra expense.Just make sure your case has sufficient airflow (i.e. roughly equivalent to 40cfm in/out) and cool the RAM/chipset that way. Then dump the rest on a decent set of hardware for your GPU and CPU.

It's pretty hard to get rubbish watercooling gubbins in this day and age, unless you go for Thermaltake stuff (Koolance have only recently starting taking watercooling seriously... but their hardware costs serious amount of money, making it shockingly bad value). The vast majority of blocks, radiators and pumps perform in a very similar manner, with the best costing significantly more for debatable gain.

To keep your costs down, go for:

- Alphacool/Swiftech radiator (between £25 and £40)
- Laing DDC pump (around £50)
- CPU block of your choice (Alphacool NexXxos is cheap but still very good - look for something at between £20 to £30);
- Res/T-line of your choice (anywhere between £10 and £30)
- Tubing and barbs/comp-fit stuff.
- Don't bother with dedicated, non-conductive fluid (like Feser, etc.) as it's expensive and decidely pointless unless (a) you can't rig your system properly and it leaks, at which point you should take a long, hard look at whether you should be watercooling in the first place; (b) you want a particular look to your system (i.e. a colour of some description, like black, that isn't available using traditional dyes).
- Use distilled water from your local car mechanic's shop with a capful or two of anti-fungal stuff/anti-freeze.

By the way, doesn't anybody read reviews of hardware anymore?
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Alphacool NexXxos Xtreme II Rev2 Double Radiator £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
XSPC Tubing Clip For 1/2" Hose £0.49
(£0.58) £3.92
(£4.64)
Swiftech MCRES-Micro Watercooling Resevoir £9.99
(£11.74) £9.99
(£11.74)
Feser One UV Reactive Coolant 1 Litre (Black/Blue) £6.99
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Masterkleer 7/16" Tubing - 1m £1.49
(£1.75) £4.47
(£5.25)
EK 1/2" Hose fitting £1.99
(£2.34) £7.96
(£9.36)
Laing DDC 1-T Pro 10W 12 VDC Pump £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
D-Tek Fuzion Universal VGA Block (ATI X2900XT, Nvidia 6800/7800/7900/8800 series) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
D-Tek Fuzion V2 Universal CPU Block (AMD Socket A/754/939/AM2, Intel 478/LGA775/423/771/603/604) £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Akasa AK-TC TIM Clean CPU & Heatsink Cleaner £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Sub Total : £166.27
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £30.66
Total : £205.88

You will need same ram heatsinks for your GT memory as well.

I have selected the d-tek fuzion cpu block because it will fit lots of systems if you upgrade later especially to an Intel quad core.

You can knock of the Feser if you want and go with Mr Thingy's suggestion.

If you don't want to cool the GT you can knock off £30.51 from the price getting you to £175.37

Of course you might have TIM cleaner and decent thermal compound already.
 
Greebo said:
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Alphacool NexXxos Xtreme II Rev2 Double Radiator £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
XSPC Tubing Clip For 1/2" Hose £0.49
(£0.58) £3.92
(£4.64)
Swiftech MCRES-Micro Watercooling Resevoir £9.99
(£11.74) £9.99
(£11.74)
Feser One UV Reactive Coolant 1 Litre (Black/Blue) £6.99 DON'T NEED THIS - JUST USE DISTILLED WATER. OR EVENT TAP WATER IF YOU DO IT PROPERLY! :o
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Masterkleer 7/16" Tubing - 1m £1.49
(£1.75) £4.47
(£5.25)
EK 1/2" Hose fitting £1.99
(£2.34) £7.96
(£9.36)
Laing DDC 1-T Pro 10W 12 VDC Pump £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
D-Tek Fuzion Universal VGA Block (ATI X2900XT, Nvidia 6800/7800/7900/8800 series) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
D-Tek Fuzion V2 Universal CPU Block (AMD Socket A/754/939/AM2, Intel 478/LGA775/423/771/603/604) £34.99 Swiftech APOGEE GT (if it has to be from here) WILL DO THE JOB JUST FINE - NO POINT GOING FOR TOP PERFORMING WATER-BLOCK WITHOUT A THERMOCHILL, etc.
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Akasa AK-TC TIM Clean CPU & Heatsink Cleaner £3.99 JUST USE NAIL-POLISH REMOVER, BUT BE CAREFUL NOT TO GET IT ON ANY PLASTIC.
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Sub Total : £166.27
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £30.66
Total : £205.88

You will need same ram heatsinks for your GT memory as well. Probably not, tbh. Especially if he's going budget.

I have selected the d-tek fuzion cpu block because it will fit lots of systems if you upgrade later especially to an Intel quad core.

You can knock of the Feser if you want and go with Mr Thingy's suggestion.Good man. ;) :D

If you don't want to cool the GT you can knock off £30.51 from the price getting you to £175.37

Of course you might have TIM cleaner and decent thermal compound already.
Click to expand...


EK 1/2" Hose fitting £1.99
(£2.34) £11.94
(£14.04)
Alphacool NexXxos Xtreme II Rev2 Double Radiator £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
XSPC X2O 400 Pump and Reservoir - Clear £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Swiftech Apogee GT Waterblock (Socket 462/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
D-Tek Fuzion Universal VGA Block (ATI X2900XT, Nvidia 6800/7800/7900/8800 series) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Masterkleer 7/16" Tubing - 1m £1.49
(£1.75) £14.90
(£17.50)
Sub Total : £129.80
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £24.46
Total : £164.21

That will substantially outperform any air-cooling solution out there. It won't be as good as Greebo's but I don't think you'll notice too much of a difference.

The key thing will be fan choice, however... I recommend Delta Focussed Flows for optimal heat dissipation. :)
 
I went for the fuzion cause it will save money later as and when he upgrades and fits more motherboard/socket types than the apogee gt so seemed worth the extra £11 however, £11 is £11 when on a budget. The Apogee is a very good cooling block and only a couple of degrees difference to the fuzion.

Doubt whether you really need 10m of tubing as Mrthingyx suggests :eek:. I did my cpu/gpu and radiator mounted outside the case with only 2m (just) so that's why I suggested 3m just to cover you.

And like an idiot I forgot the fans :o I have 4 xilence fans on my radiator and I can recommend them. May not be the best airflow but silent :D Enough to keep my q6600 at 55C and my GTS at 43C under load anyway.

Or you can use this basis to shop around for 2nd hand bits like I did. It may take you a few weeks but between members market and that well known auction site I pretty much got the spec I listed for you for £97 and a few bits I had buy new like the ram heatsinks and the tubing.
 
Don't buy plastic tubing clips....they are rubbish and caused my radiator to leak all over my desk and on the carpet...get some jubilee clips/worm drive clips; they are far more suitable.
 
reflux said:
Don't buy plastic tubing clips....they are rubbish and caused my radiator to leak all over my desk and on the carpet...get some jubilee clips/worm drive clips; they are far more suitable.
Click to expand...

Actually they were only there as an added precaution. By using 7/16" pipe on 1/2" barbs which require hot water soaking to get over and then when cool, they need to be cut off, you don't actually need any clips at all tbh.
 
Greebo said:
Actually they were only there as an added precaution. By using 7/16" pipe on 1/2" barbs which require hot water soaking to get over and then when cool, they need to be cut off, you don't actually need any clips at all tbh.
Click to expand...

Yep, sorted, see what you mean :)
 
yeah amazing!!! good for you!! I certainly didn't get this much support when I wrote something similar. Change for the better obviously.
 
I'd be interested to see before and after temps with this setup, I was about to say you can't watercool all that for £180 but I see you've ditched the nb/sb/ram etc, that lot would have pushe dthe cost to more like £300 IMO.

Anyway, be interesting to see how that rad performs, if you had the space and the extra money (about another £20) I would strongly recommend a thermochill PA series but post back with results :)
 
Greebo said:
lly need 10m of tubing as Mrthingyx suggests :eek:. I did my cpu/gpu and radiator mounted outside the case with only 2m (just) so that's why I suggested 3m just to cover you.
Click to expand...

Absolutely right. I have no idea why I put that much tubing on! :O

And Skippo: it depends how you phrase the question (i.e. how interesting it actually is) and who is reading the forum at the time.

If you just come along and ask to be spec'd watercooling for £200, it says (to me) that you can't be bothered. If you present us with a challenge (i.e. doing good for £120), that's far more interesting a proposition. And that's not to say that the OP was not lazy, just why he received a different response.
 
skippo said:
yeah amazing!!! good for you!! I certainly didn't get this much support when I wrote something similar. Change for the better obviously.
Click to expand...

Actually you did but perhaps not as quickly as you might have liked. Some of us have lives outside these forums as well you know.
 
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